28 May Washington Times commentary - A New Woman in Combat. Not! By Suzanne Fields.

Jessica Lynch turned out to be a soldier worthy of the uniform, but not, as we were told she was, the poster child for the women in the military. Hers was a great story when it broke. She was Sergeant York and Audie Murphy in skirts (although she mostly wore combat fatigues), spraying fire at the enemy with the ferocity of a warrior on fire.

Only later we learned that actually she hadn't fired a shot when her Humvee crashed and, severely wounded, she was quickly surrounded by the enemy. Wonder Woman morphed into Cinderella when American soldiers, all men, rescued her as she lay captive in a hospital held by hostile Iraqi troops.

Pfc. Lynch testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform the other day, displaying none of the bravado of certain senior female officers campaigning for women in combat. She had been there, done that, and recognized her limitations. Jessica Lynch deserves the honor we pay to all young Americans, male and female, who wear the uniform. But Pfc. Lynch, never responsible for inventing or perpetuating the myth, scoffs at the Pentagon spinners who tried to turn her into "a little Rambo."

Reporters and editors back home were eager to buy the Pentagon fairy tale of how she fought off her attackers, and they had a lot of company. A lot of people wanted her story to be true, to shut up once and for all the skeptics of women on the battlefield...